What is the best way to do keystone corrections?

[Willem Jan Drijfhout]

Does anyone know what is the best way to do keystone corrections in Affinity Photo?

The perspective control tool gives an enormous amount of creative control and flexibility. But if the only thing you want to do is to get the vertical lines of a building straight, it is quite cumbersome. First you have to set some guides, or turn on the grid. Then it's pulling top, pushing bottom on right side, then pulling top, pushing bottom on left side. By then right side has changed and needs correcting again, which changes then left, etc. etc. After several iterations you can get a perfect result, but it's tedious and I was wondering if there is an easier way to do this.

In Capture One there is a keystone control tool where you align two rulers with lines in the image you want to make vertical, click the apply button, and it's done. Is something like that available somewhere in AP? And if not, would that make an interesting feature request?

 

[emmrecs01]

@Willem Jan Drijfhout

Have you tried using the Crop Tool, on the context menu selecting "Straighten" and then with that tool draw a "corrected" vertical (or near vertical) line along each side of image?

Jeff

[MEB]

Hi Willem,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
Switch to Develop Persona, Lens tab, Lens Correction section (tick it to enable it in case it's collapsed), then use the sliders to adjust the image with the grid visible (menu View > Show Grid enabled).

[Willem Jan Drijfhout]

Thanks Jeff. Just tried that, but unfortunately doesn't work. It only rotates the image, so only one side straightens. 

[Willem Jan Drijfhout]

Thank you @MEB, this is very helpful. Had not considered using the Develop Persona for this. It worked perfectly well for a photo that is taken straight from the front. For a photo taken a bit from the side, it requires multiple sliders to adjust, so a bit more fiddly. But overall easier and more control than the perspective tool.

Having a feature that just allows selection of two vertical lines and adjusts accordingly would still be on my wish list...

Thanks for your quick and helpful response.

 

[MEB]

Hi Willem,
Glad to know it helped a little. Currently we don't have more advanced controls for geometric corrections other that those you are already aware. If you perform them frequently you may want to take a look at DxO ViewPoint which is a plugin specifically developed for this. Unfortunately it's not compatible with Affinity Photo (on macOS, haven't tested on Windows yet) but can be run as a standalone app.

[Wayne Baruch]

Hi MEB.

Thanks for your 2020 response to Willem.  I mostly shoot architectural subjects and get keystoning and warping, especially when using my 15-30 mm lens.  You mentioned DxO Viewpoint, but has Affinity added the feature since May of 2020?  Best, Wayne

[smadell]

They haven't, but a Keystone filter (on its own or, perhaps, as an addition to the Perspective filter) would be wonderful. Even it only handled a pair of verticals or a pair of horizontals, that would work well. If, in addition, such a keystoning filter could apply itself as a "percentage" of the stated correction (in order to leave a little bit of keystoning in order to look more natural) that would even be better!